Reid’s Machine Powers Obama in Nevada Test
Mr. Reid’s organization is a large reason that Mr. Obama is favored by many analysts to win narrowly in Nevada, despite what may be the worst economic climate in the nation and a sizable population of voters who, like Mitt Romney, are Mormons. Mr. Reid, who has long been strongly supportive of Mr. Obama in Washington — he maneuvered the president’s health care bill through legislative hoops to an unlikely victory in the Senate — has made it clear that he views a victory for Mr. Obama in his state as a personal mission. This reflects not only his admiration for the president but also his visceral dislike for Mr. Romney, expressed in constant needling and attacks for almost six months.
Even more ambitiously (and perhaps more problematically), Mr. Reid is determined, friends say, to lift Representative Shelley Berkley, a Democrat, to victory over Senator Dean Heller, a Republican, as he seeks to make sure that he does not return to Washington next year as the Senate minority leader.
Mr. Romney is campaigning here for two days this week — both he and Mr. Obama were in the state on Wednesday — backed up by a surge of new advertising, reflecting the importance that both he and the president have placed on this state’s six electoral votes.
In a contrast that has been noted by the Romney camp, the Nevada Republican Party has collapsed in a storm of factionalism and infighting between Tea Party conservatives and party regulars. A contingent of supporters of Representative Ron Paul of Texas, an unsuccessful Republican presidential candidate, ousted the party leadership in a showdown in the spring.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/us/politics/reids-machine-aims-to-push-obama-to-victory-in-nevada.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
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